The Anonymous Widower

A Divided City

London is a divided city and it has always been thus.

I am a North Londoner and can’t understand why anybody would want to live South of the Great Sewer. Compared to my childhood, it’s now grown up to be a river.

This is not just a white middle-class attitude, as I’ve been told by policemen, that criminals rarely commit crime on both sides of the river, and I’ve met several black South and North Londoners, who have my attitude to the other part of London.

In my childhood, the transport system made this divide a lot worse. We learned to duck and dive into the Underground and those in the South, learned how to get around using the Southern electrics, which to a North Londoner seem to have been laid out by the Devil to confuse outsiders.

It’s better now, with Thameslink, the Overground and the Victoria and Jubilee lines  adding extra connections between North and South London.

But one place, where the divide is still great is in the East. London has a housing shortage and two of the areas, where a large number of houses are to be built in the east, are Barking Riverside to the North of the Thames and Thamesmead to the South. The latter found its fame as the set for A Clockwork Orange and now surrounds the notorious Belmarsh Prison.

Both of these areas lack decent transport links.  Wikipedia has a section on transport for Thamesmead which says this.

Thamesmead’s location between the Thames and the South London escarpment limits rail transport and road access points. Thus Thamesmead has no underground or surface rail links. Most residents rely on bus services to reach the nearest rail stations.

Barking Riverside fares little better, according to this section in Wikipedia. Here’s the first bit.

Barking Riverside is connected to Barking, Ilford and Dagenham Dock by the East London Transit bus rapid transit service.

But at least the Gospel Oak to Barking Line is being extended to the houses at Riverside.

What was originally proposed was a new road bridge across the river called the Thames Gateway bridge, that would have originally opened in 2013.

But now in London’s Transport Plan for 2050, a rail tunnel is being proposed that links the Goblin at Barking Riverside to Abbey Wood station for Crossrail and the Kent lines, with an intermediate station at Thamesmead.

It will not be a low-cost option, as tunnelling isn’t a question of hiring a few navvies, so as the DLR extension to Woolwich Arsenal cost a couple of hundred million or so, we’re probably looking at a half billion pound project to connect the rail lines under the Thames.

But surely, if it improves the east of London and makes housing in Barking Riverside and Thamesmead more attractive, it surely must be high up the benefit cost scale.

August 3, 2014 Posted by | News, Transport/Travel | , , , , , | 3 Comments

Crossrail Is Even Now Having A Big Effect On London

Two stories I found today, show the sort of effect Crossrail is going to have on London.

This article from Ealing Today describes how Hanwell is going to get four trains per hour during peak hours of the day. Currently, it would appear it’s less than that. The report says this.

Dr Onkar Sahota, Labour Assembly Member for Ealing & Hillingdon said: “Whether it has been the re-opening of the South entrance to the station or the step-free access to platform level, the good news for Hanwell keeps coming.”

“I am pleased that after so much pressure from across the community, Crossrail have relented and will attempt to deliver four trains during peak hours.”

“I will continue to press the Mayor and Crossrail to ensure that we have a minimum of four trains per hour at all times, and will be watching closely to ensure that Crossrail come good on their pledge to deliver the long awaited Sunday service.”

There is also this report from Easier Property, which discusses how if your near a Crossrail station properties are doing better.  It says this.

According to Hamptons International , transactions for properties within a mile of a Crossrail station grew by 21% in 2013, compared with the London average of 13%, and New Festival Quarter from Bellway Homes certainly echoes this London-wide trend.

And it is still four or five years before the new railway opens.

June 26, 2014 Posted by | Transport/Travel, World | , , , | Leave a comment

Is This The House Of The Future?

All over the world we have a problem of affordable, quality housing.

So when I saw this  £30,000 house for one on the BBC web site, called a Y-Cube I had to investigate.

It has a good pedigree in being designed by Rogers Stirk Harbour and backed by the YMCA.  There’s a lot more about the concept here.

This design may not succeed, but others will!

We are all  too ambitious (or is it greedy?) about the type of property we want to live in.

And the tax system encourages well-off single people like myself to live by ourselves in larger houses. Why should I get a Council Tax rebate because I live alone?

Sometimes, I think I’d prefer a minimalist luxury two-bedroom flat high in a tower block with spectacular views of the river. One of the reasons, I don’t move, is that I’d probably be the only person, actually living in a flat they owned.

Perhaps, Councils should publish the occupancy statistics for every street and block in their area. Possible incomers would then see the areas with the right mix of population for their choice of dwelling.

May 18, 2014 Posted by | World | , , | 3 Comments

Is The Gospel Oak To Barking Line Going To Be Extended?

London needs houses and one of the best places to build them is in the East near the Thames in Barking. The developments are talked about here.

Development has been a bit slow, as the area is badly served by public transport and the Mayor and the GLA have pushing for better rail links to the area.

One plan was to extend the DLR and the other was to extend the Gospel Oak to Barking line of the Overground.

According to this report in the Standard last night, it would appear that the Overground is to be extended. Here’s the first bit.

George Osborne will signal a £150 million rail link to speed up the construction of thousands of new homes in the capital in his Budget this week, it is revealed today.

The Chancellor is expected to indicate he is keen to extend the Gospel Oak to Barking Line — nicknamed the Goblin Line — to Barking Riverside.

It would help unlock up to 11,000 new houses, offices and shops planned in a redevelopment that aims to transform a 350-acre site of industrial and brownfield land.

I wonder how many other projects like this, will turn up between now and the next election? This project is quoted as costing £150million, but as it makes 11,000 new homes viable and probably creates quite a few jobs, this surely is the sort of project that has a high benefit to cost ration. It also has the Overground-factor in that when it opens, it’ll probably attract far more passengers than expected and everybody will say why wasn’t it done years ago.

There are some interesting ones that have been proposed. Some of the ones I like are upgrading of the Marshlink Line and the Tees Valley Metro, both of which I’ve experienced in the last few weeks. None of the ones here, are big rail projects, where lots of new track and new trains are required.

I suspect that after seeing George Osborne’s backing for the Northern Hub and railway electrification in general, I have this feeling that after the Gospel Oak to Barking line announcement, that the budget may have some rail infrastructure surprises from the reinstatement and upgrading of lines to the building of new stations and the refurbishment of old ones.

One thing that seems to have happened in the last few years, is that now the passenger and freight flows on our railways are getting more stable and predictable, Network Rail has implemented some projects like the Hitchin flyover, where the msin purpose, is to make the important lines more reliable and less subject to delay.

March 18, 2014 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , , , , | 2 Comments

New Houses That Get Flooded

In the recent heavy rain and resulting floods, I’m surprised to see how many new houses have got flooded.

My father told me never to buy a house that could be flooded and I have followed his advice and never bought a house that has ever suffered a flood.

Governments are pussy-footing around the problem, as this article shows.  There should be a law, that means if any new properties flood, then the developer is responsible for fixing the problem.  This would probably mean, houses were built, that were much  suitable for our climate. They would probably be unsaleable to many punters, who prefer Pete Seeger‘s Little Boxes.

But hey! We have some of the best and most innovative architects in this country! The trouble is we also have a lot of very conservative people and especially politicians and planners, who think inside the box!

Incidentally, Pete Seeger is still alive at 94. Hopefully, his music is still making us think!

January 10, 2014 Posted by | News | , , , | Leave a comment

A Contribution To The Danny Baker Show

This morning Danny Baker on his BBC Radio 5 show, asked for contributions about decorating the smallest room in the house.

In the 1960s, my parents were thinking about moving.  They saw this nice house in Palmers Green, which had a totally black toilet, with black walls, floor and even a black suite.

They didn’t buy the house! I should say that even with my father’s excellent decorating skills, he was totally daunted at the prospect of removing all that paint. I even heard him talk about the house, years later.

I was invited to discuss this on air with Danny and he said, he’d once used the same colour for a kitchen.

He said, it was a disaster! especially, as the gloss paint he used wouldn’t dry and he’d even painted the lino.

There could be use though, for this crime against good taste.

If say your partner is keen to move and you are totally against it, what better way of putting off buyers, than to paint the toilet black.

It would also be a good way to get even with your ex-spouse in an acrimonious divorce, especially, if they got the house!

 

January 4, 2014 Posted by | World | , , , , | 1 Comment

A Reason To Visit Margate

Just read this report on a house in Margate on the BBC.

I’ll be going!

October 1, 2013 Posted by | World | , , | 3 Comments

Around Stratford International Station

I walked around Stratford International station this morning.

It has always puzzled me, why trains for Europe don’t stop here.  perhaps we should create the Trans Manche Metro.

August 25, 2013 Posted by | Transport/Travel | , , | Leave a comment

The Tallest Timber Residential Structure In The World

You’d have thought that this would be somewhere like Japan, Scandinavia or perhaps Canada, but despite it’s name, the Stadthaus is in Murray Grove in the London Borough of Hackney.

Wikipedia says this about the building.

It is thought to be the tallest timber residential structure in the world.It was designed in collaboration between architects Waugh Thistleton, structural engineers Techniker, and timber panel manufacturer KLH.

Stadthaus is the first high-density housing building to be built from pre-fabricated cross-laminated timber panels. It is the first building in the world of this height to construct not only load-bearing walls and floor slabs but also stair and lift cores entirely from timber.

I like it and it shows how modern buildings don’t have to be constructed using traditional methods.  It was also constructed in just 49 weeks and residents moved in ahead of schedule.

So as we need more housing and we need it quickly, perhaps we should build more houses and flats using these methods.

August 18, 2013 Posted by | World | , , , | Leave a comment

They Don’t Care About House Colours In Hackney

This story from Devon shows one of the problems of living in the area of a council and among residents, who have strong views.

It’s not a good shade of pink and I don’t like it. We may have a few brightly coloured buildings in Hackney, but at least they’ve generally been agreed by everyone.

In cities too, most buildings are of brick and they tend to match easier.

I don’t miss the petty [politics of the countryside.

July 29, 2013 Posted by | News, World | , | Leave a comment

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